Traditional static advertising displays do not make full use of the display space as its content is fixed. Dynamic displays such as scrolling pictures or video, provide content that varies with time, but it may not show appropriate content to the current audience at all times. Furthermore, a passive display does not empower the audience to explore the advertisement and obtain more information.
Touch screen based advertising systems do allow for audience interaction but they require explicit input. A user must take the initiative and in many public situations a user will be intimidated from making input. Further, the screen must be physically reachable by the audience, and therefore the size and location are constrained.
There are many other competing advertising media, such as television and the World Wide Web. In fact there is so much advertising content that traditional advertising and marketing methods are becoming less effective. It is a great challenge for advertisers and media producers to attract attention to their messages.
Evaluation is an important part in advertising. Advertising agencies work hard to justify every dollar that their clients are called to spend. In television advertising a client may have confidence that the purchase of commercial prime time advertising will result in a calculable increase in sales. At present there is a lack of such confidence in information displays, such as posters in store and billboards, and there is at present no way of demonstrating the effectiveness of this medium.